The historic Colorado flood[3] that has torn apart roadways, ripped homes off foundations and forced thousands of evacuations also has impacted one of Colorado’s most thriving industries — shutting down a number of breweries.

Bags of malt are placed in front of the doors of Left Hand Brewing in Longmont on Thursday, which was being threatened by a surging St. Vrain River. (Courtesy of Left Hand Brewing).

Left Hand Brewing [4] in Longmont has been under evacuation orders for two days from the surging St. Vrain River next to the brewery. So far, the brewery has received minimal damage, said Emily Armstrong, spokeswoman for the brewery.

“But we’re not out of the weeds just yet,” said Armstrong on Friday.

The river flooded the brewery’s loading dock area and broke a gate, letting some water in the brewhouse, but not enough to cause too much damage, Armstrong said. The staff put up bags of malt in front of the taproom and the river didn’t penetrate that area or cooler, she said. Electricity has been shut off, so there is concern about beer in process, she said.

“Longmont is literally in bad shape,” Goldberg said. “There is going to be a big, big mess to clean up. Our mission is to do the right thing, contribute back to where we live, work and play. So we want to take our benefit and turn that into something really valuable to our community and make it a disaster relief effort.”

Meanwhile, officials from Longmont’s other big brewery, Oskar Blues[6], are watching their Lyons brewpub[7], which has survived the flood, according to Dave Chichura, head brewer.

“Our brewpub apparently is up high enough that we weren’t affected,” Chichura said. “We can’t get into the town, which is troubling. … There will be no brewing or any type of use of water until it is deemed safe.”

Chichura said he is more concerned for everyone in Lyons, particularly his friends and co-workers. The brewery’s Longmont facility has been shut down mostly out of concern for employees, he said.

Avery Brewing officials said their Boulder brewery and tasting room were unaffected by the flood, other than having power shut off overnight Thursday. The tasting room closed because roadways around the brewery and its parking lot had flooded, said Joe Osborne, the brewery’s marketing director.

“Luckily our engineer was able to get things back on line quick enough,” Osborne said. “We still need to check whether anything got affected too badly.”